City of Panhandle v. Byrd

77 S.W.2d 904
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 12, 1934
DocketNo. 4298
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 77 S.W.2d 904 (City of Panhandle v. Byrd) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Panhandle v. Byrd, 77 S.W.2d 904 (Tex. Ct. App. 1934).

Opinion

HALL, Chief Justice.

The appellee Byrd sued the appellant city to recover damages due to personal injuries which he alleges he sustained on July 16, 1931, while an employee 'of the city working with one W. E. Wright, foreman, in running some street grading equipment, consisting of a caterpillar tractor, operated by Wright, in pulling a grader which was operated by plaintiff and which they were using in scraping the streets in Panhandle. That on the occasion in question the city of Panhandle was having the equipment used in cleaning gutters and removing drainpipes. That the drainpipes that were being cleaned out at that time were situated in the gutters on each side of the street to protect the property owners living adjacent to said street. That the work was being done for the purpose of protecting the said property owners in order that water which had theretofore been accumulating in the drains and gutters would be carried off and not damage the abutting property of the landowners. That the said culverts were so placed in order to form approaches to the premises of said abutting property. That the platform on which plaintiff was required to stand was insecurely fastened to the grader and constituted a hazard such as plaintiff’s foreman should have anticipated by the use of ordinary care and which constituted negligence on the part of the city proximately causing plaintiff’s injuries. That the work which the city was having done was not necessary for the purpose of opening the streets or removing any obstruction thereon. That generally speaking the drains and gutters were serving the city reasonably well, the main inconvenience being to the owners of abutting property wherein their premises would have been flooded and that did not have proper approach to their premises so that the work was being done primarily for the convenience of the inhabitants of the city and specially for the owners of abutting property.

Plaintiff more particularly alleges that in cleaning out the gutters it sometimes became necessary to use a chain with a hook on the end, which was carried along to loop around culverts or walkways which they would temporarily lift out of place in order to better clean the gutter, and that on the day in question, shortly before plaintiff’s injury and after having used the chain several times, plaintiff and his foreman lifted and pulled the other end of the chain up and tied it to the platform on the grader where plaintiff stood during his work, then they moved ahead down the street with the tractor pulling the grader and the chain trailing behind the grader with the hook end on the ground, plaintiff being in his place on the platform of the grader, and while the outfit was traveling along the street over towards the ditch, they came to a large culvert, consisting of a twenty-foot section of twelve-inch oil-well casing. That they decided not to try to remove that, and instead the tractor turned out slightly to pass by the side of the culvert, and plaintiff guided the grader in the same way, but as they passed this culvert the hook on the end of the chain that was dragging happened in some way to catch on the end of this pipe culvert, and when the tractor and grader drew the chain taut, same jerked the platform,' on which plaintiff was standing, loose from the grader, causing him to fall to the ground, which fractured and injured his right leg and ankle, for which plaintiff claims damages on the ground that it was negligence on the city’s part to permit the chain to drag behind the grader.

The city answered by general demurrer and general denial and specially alleged that the work which it was having done was in the discharge of a duty delegated to it under the general statutes of the state applicable to municipal corporations. It filed a plea of contributory negligence, assumed risk, that plaintiff well knew that at places along the borrow pit where he was working the residents living in property abutting the avenue had laid culverts lengthwise, made of pipe or other materials suitable for the purpose of a drain along such borrow pit, and had covered such culverts with dirt to form a driveway into such abutting premises.

There was a trial to a jury, and in response to special issues the jury found as follows:

(1) Under all the facts and circumstances at the time plaintiff sustained his injury, the dragging of the chain behind the grader constituted negligence on the part of the defendant.

(2) Such negligence was a proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury.

[907]*907(3) That the injury received by plaintiff was not the result of an unavoidable accident.

(4) That plaintiff was not guilty of contributory negligence on the occasion in question.

(6) Plaintiff did not assume the risk of being injured in the manner in which he was injured.

(11) $5,405.20, if paid at this time, will reasonably compensate plaintiff for the injury he has sustained.

(12) That the misfortune which befell plaintiff or some similar event was not something which a person of ordinary prudence should have reasonably foreseen as likely to occur from dragging the chain behind the grader.

Judgment was entered based upon the verdict, from which this appeal is prosecuted.

Under numerous propositions the appellant contends that the court erred in not directing a verdict in favor of the city.

A request by the defendant for an instructed verdict admits as true all evidence supporting plaintiff’s claim, and in determining the propriety of such peremptory instruction the evidence must be considered most favorably to plaintiff, disregarding conflicts and contradictions, no matter how strong or how much in conflict the contradicting evidence may be. Ladies Benevolent Society v. Magnolia Cemetery Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 268 S. W. 198; Owen v. Al Parker Securities Co. (Tex. Civ. App.) 296 S. W. 620; Al Parker Securities Co. v. Owen (Tex. Com. App.) 1 S.W. (2d) 271.. And the court must indulge every legitimate conclusion favorable to plaintiff and warranted by the facts proved. Gross v. Shell Pipe Line Corporation (Tex. Civ. App.) 48 S.W.(2d) 377. And every favorable inference that may properly be drawn from the evidence must be construed by the court against such peremptory instruction. Texas Employers’ Insurance Association v. Boecker (Tex. Civ. App.) 53 S.W.(2d) 327; Jackson v. Langford (Tex. Civ. App.) 60 S.W.(2d) 267. Moreover, this court must accept as true all evidence tending to support the findings of the jury on the issues submitted. Jones v. Jones (Tex. Civ. App.) 41 S.W.(2d) 496.

As we understand the plaintiff’s pleading, he seeks' to recover because of defendant’s negligence in having a platform with insufficient fastenings and further negligence in permitting the chain to drag on the ground behind the grader.

The issue of the fastening of the platform to the grader was not submitted to the jury, nor requested, and though there is some evidence tending to sustain it, it has been waived- except as bearing upon the propriety of giving or refusing appellant’s peremptory instruction.

The witness Wright, who was in charge of the work and had been employed by the city for about five years in doing similar work and who was familiar with the machine, testified, in response to questions, as follows:

“Q. What kind of a platform was there on that machine where it was situated on the grader? A. There was a small platform. I judge about 20 to 24 inches square that the grader man [Byrd] stood on at the rear of the grader.
“Q.

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77 S.W.2d 904, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-panhandle-v-byrd-texapp-1934.